The famine looming today in Syria is caused not by a lack of food, but by policies consciously adopted by the Assad regime for many years, argues Yassin al-Haj Saleh.

How a scion of the Assad regime’s inner circle placed flattering profiles of himself in Western publications, and what this bodes for the future of online media.

Having expelled whole communities en masse from numerous Syrian cities and towns, a new law now allows the Assad regime to confiscate their properties, rendering their displacement permanent and radically transforming the country’s demography.

While the outbreak of revolution in 2011 took many by surprise, the pre-conditions for such an upheaval had accumulated for decades.